Social Media

Twitter CEO: 2012 Will Be the Twitter Election

"I really think 2012 is going to be the Twitter Election," Dick Costolo said on stage at AllThingsD's media conference in Laguna Nigel, Calif., Monday evening. It was an unusually confident declaration from a CEO who has hitherto appeared remarkably modest in his communications.

By saying that 2012 would be a "Twitter Election," Costolo was not suggesting that sentiment analysis of tweets would indicate the winning candidate. Instead, he meant that Twitter has become an essential platform for reaching voters, and for gathering and responding to feedback in real time.

"We already saw this during the State of the Union when [President] Obama made the spilled milk joke and a collective groan went up across the country on Twitter," Costolo posited. "In the past, you'd have to wait for the networks to cut to the pundits after the address was done to discuss it. You don't have to do that anymore."

"Washington is really starting to get that too … [It's] actively engaging in the real-time feedback loop now," he added. "Instead of waiting for the rebuttal at the end, there were two senators live-tweeting their rebuttals [during the speech]."

This kind of real-time engagement is essential, he said. "Candidates who don't participate in the conversation on Twitter will be left behind [in the elections], The next morning is too late to respond."

He also emphasized Twitter's role in humanizing public figures. "One of the reasons we've gotten so many celebrities from all walks of life [on Twitter] is because it gives them a vehicle to communicate directly with the people." That capability could be crucial during election season, he suggested.

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